The word “genesis” means origin. In the first book of the biblical scriptures called “The book of Genesis”, this term refer to creation of the Earth. Legendary Magnum photographer Sebastiao Salgado called his exhibition “Genesis” to show us Earth like it used to be in old times. With his work he makes us back to the roots. But isolated places on Salgado’s photographs do not scare with its wildness. For me they rather reflect the background of Brazilian-born photographer – pure and emotional.

I thought it is impossible to win the contest by The New York Times. But today it was clear that I was mistaken. More than a month ago they announced a contest “A World at 7 Billion” dedicated to the 31.10.11 – a date when the 7th billion person was born. The aim of the competition was to gather the best photographs from all over the world for displaying to that lucky kid and all the population how our world looked like that days.

I heard about this contest due to Maxim (my boyfriend). He also was the one who checked the web-page today and informed me about the final results. The New York Times published my photo!

But before we were viewing every picture (about 390) and didn’t see the one I made. Normally I am quite skeptical about any victory in such a scale contest. Especially when millions of people are participating. I lost any hopes after second (and the last) page of the photos-winners. But suddenly I saw it!!! After the first wave of happiness I saw it even in the main cover of the news – it was my photo (in the middle) with other 19th pics they choose as a face of the event. In the end I was totally surprised: I wanted to share it in the facebook and the pic was in the thumbnail of the link of The New York Times. Thank you for this!!!

And here is the picture. I made it in Istanbul – a really unique town, inside Hagia Sophia. Being inside you can feel the power of religion and history together. It was build in ancient Constantinople 15 centuries ago. I would say it was a temple for Christianity, also the mosque later. But its just incredible how many people from different centuries and religions stepped inside the building! I think that Sophia will still remain at 7th, 8th or 20th billion. But still it will keep steps of civilizations. And you can leave your step there too. I made my together with Maxim, so this is our personal victory!